NARCOTIC
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But staying heroin-free is not easy. Woods says withdrawal from long-term heroin use —even with methadone to smooth the path—fails most of the time. In all, she estimates that there are about 250,000 U.S. addicts on methadone. But there is a strong stigma in the U.S. against drug users, especially heroin ad dicts. Woods ticks off many examples of judges ordering addicts off methadone as part ofprobation, doctors refusing to treat
HERE'S NOTHING PRETTY ABOUT in the late 1940s, and methadone began opiate addiction. Heroin, the being used to help detoxify heroin and U.S.'s most commonly abused morphine addicts who were trying to kick opiate, offers a euphoric rush, the habit. Withdrawal from methadone is then drowsy mindlessness that tough but less painful than withdrawal lasts maybe six hours, followed by a crash from other opiates. ing craving that lasts maybe forever. A series of studies in the mid-1960s at Addicts run the risk of death if they in Rockefeller University in New ^brk City, ject a bad dose, or H I V if they share a nee led by Vincent Dole and his colleague METHADONE dle with the wrong junkie. A heroin habit and wife, Marie Nyswander, found that can cost hundreds of dollars a day, a tab methadone could also be a viable mainte Name: 6-(DimethylaminoM,4that's hard to cover when one is high and diphenyl-3-heptanone nance treatment to keep addicts off her wasted. The drug drains society of billions CAS Registry: 76-99-3 oin and give them a fighting chance to in costs for crime, hospital care, incarcer Did you know that in 2004 a woman in function in society The researchers were ation, foster care, injuries, and death. Tazewell County, Va., had her parole looking for a way to curb the growing opi In the U.S., some 800,000 people are revoked and was sent back to prison ate addiction plaguing Newlfork City chronically addicted to heroin, and a because—against judges' orders—she "They looked at a small group of peo growing number are be was using physician-prescribed ple with long histories of coming addicted to Oxymethadone to help control her OxyConaddiction," says Joycelyn Contin, another synthetic tin addiction? Woods, president of the opiate. There are also an un National Alliance of Metha known number of weekend addicts, and communities blocking clinics done Advocates and a neu warriors, trying to get along from their neighborhoods. ropsychologist. "They tried on the edge of addiction. About one-third of addicts have men treating them with differ In the scheme of nation tal health problems, she says, but they are ent levels of morphine, but al health tragedies, this may not seem like a the subjects just sat there day after day frequently told to get off methadone as a lot ofpeople, but the pain and hopelessness condition for treatment at a mental health watching T V and waiting for their next for addicts, their families, and society cries facility "They are given a choice of'treat shot. Nothing happened. my addiction or treat my mental illness.' out for compassion and a national solution. "When everything else failed, they Heck of a choice for people like these who For 40 years, methadone has offered switched the subjects to methadone. They have been pretty beaten up by life." one such hope, but its power to help ad raised the dose higher than that used to dicts has been challenged almost contin Governments should be encouraging detoxify addicts, and after about two uously. It is controversial and carries its medical treatment with methadone, not weeks, the addicts began to behave dif own dark stigma. trying to get people off the drug, says ferently One guy had been a tradesman Robert Newman, a physician and in A synthetic opiate, methadone can ternational leader in addiction treat control the dull roar of pain. It blocks ment. Such treatment should be done the brain's opiate receptors and can where possible by a private physician curb craving for heroin or morphine and should usually last a patient's life without offering the intense, short time, he says, adding that opiate ad lived blast of euphoria and drowsiness diction is a medical condition for that comes with other opiates. which there is no known cure. A narcotic painkiller, methadone was first synthesized by German At best, he says, heroin addicts in chemists just before World War II in the U.S. are treated in large, govern ment-approved, centralized clinics, a search for a nonaddictive painkiller. and doctors and clinicians face a host When used by heroin or πιοφηΐη€ ad of government restrictions. dicts, methadone fills the μ-opioid re ceptors in the brain, essentially taking And 80% of U.S. heroin addicts the place of those opiates and negating RELIEF Synthesized as a painkiller, methadone lack access to methadone treatment facilities, he says. their influence. Methadone is longer has saved countless lives. ~~ T h e U.S., he continues, should fol lasting than heroin, allowing 24 to 36 — hours before it must be retaken, rather low the U.K., France, Switzerland, Croat and wanted to rejoin his union and go back than six hours between a heroin fix. It can ia, Australia, Canada, and other countries to work; another guy suddenly started be taken orally, breaking an addict's pat and ease access to methadone, expand its painting furiously; a third one wanted to use by encouraging private physicians to get a high school degree. They weren't sit tern of injection, and it produces a weak ting in front of the T V anymore. It was like provide medical treatment for opiate ad "high" that disappears with longer treat they picked up their lives where they left diction, and address addiction as a solv ment, as does the intense craving for more. off years ago," Woods says. able national problem.—JEFF JOHNSON Several of these properties were noticed 88
C&EN / JUNE 20, 2005
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